And the city burned for days.
We have a serious problem with the police department here in Minneapolis. This is the third civilian killed by cops during what should have been nothing encounters or arrests.
While it's obvious that we need someone to take a long hard look at the methods Mpls uses in the screening and training of officers, I can't help but think that the current nation wide paroxysm is due as much to the circumstance of the lockdowns as the righteous rage of another unwarranted death in custody. Don't get me wrong: what happened to Mr. Floyd is an outrage. I just don't think every major city in America would be in flames if it hadn't happened while all of us were already anxious, bored or outraged due to three months of house arrest. Our institutions have certainly not covered themselves in glory this spring. In fact, they've done nothing but betray us.
Our Governor, who lied us into lockdown, doubled down on it when the numbers didn't support his decrees. Our Mayor ordered us all into masks nearly two months into this pointless quarantine, including little kids, who are neither threatened by the virus, nor a threat to anyone else. Our media has not bothered to find the truth but has simply echoed the nonsense spouted by our politicians, as if getting elected made them omnipotent gods.
And then George Floyd was killed in custody for the sake of a suspected bogus $20.00 bill.
No, that does not mean that police are racists. No, that does not mean we should abolish the police force. NO, that is not reason to burn down our own neighborhoods. No, that is not a reason to shoot or beat anyone else.
Yes, we need to take a long hard look at how our police force is manned, trained and supervised. But we also need to take a long hard look at the people we've elected to govern our cities and our state. This mess didn't happen in a vacuum. This mess didn't really happen in an instant. The killing of Mr. Floyd was the spark flicked into a dry pile of tinder. It didn't just catch fire; it exploded.
Surprisingly, much good can come out of it, starting with the cleaning out and overhaul of the police force and all those charged with its oversight and management. Like the Mayor's office. Jacob Frey has proved himself unfit for office this week. Governor Walz has proven himself a speed talking shyster who hides his lack of answers and leadership in long winded speeches that say nothing, a skill he no doubt learned during his years in academia. Every single person in the media who peddled lies about out of state militia, whether Antifa or White Supremacist, should lose their jobs. Any gossipy old hen can make up and spread rumors, we don't need to pay for that.
I watched live on television, as our TV news came up with the lie that the semi tanker that ran into the demonstration on the 35W bridge was covered in KKK and white supremacist insignia and was trying to mow down protesters. It wasn't true. It wasn't just a lie, it was a damned lie: the opposite of the truth.
MnDot, responsible for closing the highways, didn't do their job. The highway, which had been set to close at 7, closed an hour earlier for the demonstration but MnDot didn't get the job done.
The driver, Bogdan Vechirko, isn't a white supremacist. In fact, he's the only driver who was willing to deliver a tanker of gasoline to a black owned service station in the neighborhood where the riots were taking place. He was doing a solid good deed, entered the highway on an on ramp some civic employee neglected to close on time and did a heroic job of not running over any of the thousands of people he came around a curve to find crowded onto the highway. He reacted brilliantly to a nightmare scenario while the press demonized him for the entire nation in real time. And it was demonstrators on the bridge who protected him when he could have been even more severely beaten by outraged fellow protestors. In a horrifying, emotionally fraught situation, many people behaved beautifully.
The media told us a story that was the opposite of true. Just like they did last year regarding Nick Sandmann and the incident at the Lincoln memorial.
I hope the takeaway is that people realize it's best to with hold judgement until all the facts are in. It's best not to believe the first stories we're told by the media. Just because it was on the news, doesn't make it so. I hope I remember that lesson.
In the midst of all this, people of all demographics in the Twin Cities have been coming together, donating time to clean up the mess, groceries to help those who lost so much and solace to each other if that's all they have. For every one of the trouble makers who think throwing bricks through windows is excusable, a hundred of us are reaching out and trying to be kind to each other.
We need to keep that up.
Kindness may be all we have left.